Quantum weirdness: seven solutions (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 17, 2016, 15:14 (2840 days ago) @ David Turell

With experts voting here are poll results:-https://www.newscientist.com/article/2097199-seven-ways-to-skin-schrodingers-cat/-So what are our best guesses? In 2011, 33 physicists and philosophers at a conference in Austria on “Quantum physics and the nature of reality” were asked to nominate their favourites, listed below. The percentages of the delegates backing the various options do not add up to 100 - in keeping with the spirit of quantum theory, the poll allowed multiple answers.-The Copenhagen interpretation - 14 votes, 42 per cent-Critics of this view claim it is no explanation at all. But the Copenhagen interpretation, devised by quantum pioneer Niels Bohr and others in the Danish capital in the 1920s, remains by far the dominant way to explain away quantum weirdness. Often described as the “shut up and calculate” option, it basically says that since we are conditioned to think in terms of the classical world around us, the quantum world is in essence unknowable. Quantum theory is an extremely effective tool for making predictions, but no more than that. When we observe the quantum world, we force it to conform to our preconceptions - “collapsing” it into a classical shadow of itself.-The information interpretation - 8 votes, 24 per cent-Information-theory interpretations stem from a growing realisation among physicists that the most basic currency of reality might be not stuff, but stuff we know about stuff -bits of information. When we observe a quantum object, we extract information from it, and it is this that causes it to lose its quantum mojo.-Many worlds - 6 votes, 18 per cent-For a disciple of many worlds, the quantum realm is intrinsically fuzzy. Observing it does not create a single defined reality, but splits reality into as many parallel worlds as there were options for what might have been observed.-Objective collapse - 3 votes, 9 per cent-In this picture, there's no need for an observer to destroy an object's quantum nature - it happens spontaneously all the time, like radioactive particles randomly decaying. The more particles there are, the more speedily this happens. We are a clodhopping, already decayed, non-quantum bundle that entangle ourselves with any quantum object we observe, infecting it with classical physics.-Quantum Bayesianism - 2 votes, 6 per cent-Taking its cue from Bayesian probability, in which a 50 per cent probability of rain in the weather forecast is immediately updated to a 100 per cent probability when you open the curtain and see it's actually raining, quantum Bayesianism asserts that quantum uncertainty is all in our minds. Our confusion about how reality works at the finest scales is merely a product of our imperfect information about it.-Relational quantum mechanics - 2 votes, 6 per cent-In Einstein's relativity there is no absolute answer to whether two events are simultaneous - it depends on your point of view. Similarly, this interpretation asserts that no single observer can ever be in possession of all the facts about a quantum state - we are part of any measurement we make, so lack any full view of it.-The de Broglie-Bohm interpretation - no votes, 0 per cent-No one likes it - so why should we care? Because the idea has a long and rich history, being based on classic work by quantum pioneers Louis de Broglie and David Bohm, and isn't entirely done yet. The bewildering nature of quantum theory implies that there must be additional stuff we're not seeing - in this case it's “pilot waves” that guide the evolution of quantum states on some hitherto unexplored layer of reality.-Comment: Note that nothing like Kastner's transactional analysis is noted. Still confusion. From the article: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you haven't understood quantum mechanics.” That jibe, supposedly made by physicist Richard Feynman half a century ago, still rings true today."